


My Eyes Wide Shut and I Feel Your Touch

by RyuUmi



Category: Mystery Skulls Animated
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Ghost Lewis (Mystery Skulls Animated), Memory Loss, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27509017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyuUmi/pseuds/RyuUmi
Summary: MSA Future. In which Lewis is thrust down memory lane from childhood to present when Arthur grabs his locket. Can be interpreted as Lewvithur or Lewis/Vivi & platonic love Arthur.
Relationships: Arthur & Lewis (Mystery Skulls Animated), Arthur & Vivi (Mystery Skulls Animated), Lewis/Vivi (Mystery Skulls Animated)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 63





	My Eyes Wide Shut and I Feel Your Touch

**Author's Note:**

> I had a very long fanfic written back in 2016 after Freaking Out came out, but I never got to finish. I went back to that fanfic, cringed a bit, and took some elements that I was going for from that fic to adapt it to our current knowledge of what's going on in the MSA storyline. This was originally going to be one big fic, but it got so long that I felt it was necessary to split it into two chapters.

“You don’t have to tell me your name. Everybody knows who you are.”

Light pierced Lewis’s eyes. A stark contrast to the dark, shadowed truck he previously found himself in.

_Huh?_

Lewis unclenched his outstretched fist. Was he holding something?

A man. Yes. A man.

_Didn’t finish the job._

That man. He resembled….

Lewis’s eyes lowered, taking in the scene before him: two young boys, no older than middle-schoolers, standing in a hallway. One stunned, the other bristling.

 _Him_.

A child, clad in orange, held an all too familiar hostile stare.

 _H i m_ .

“What?” the other boy — _Me_ — asked, dumbfounded.

“I _said_ ,” the blonde worded slowly. “Everybody knows who you are. You don’t need to waste your breath.”

The younger Lewis blinked, an awkwardness, that could only be blamed on puberty, clogging the words in his throat. “Oh.. um… Yeah. Okay.”

With a sharp pivot, the blonde was dashing away without another word, leaving behind Lewis’s stunned younger self.

Memories were stringing together behind Lewis’s skull. Yes. He remembered this well enough. The discomfort, the confusion, the questions that fluttered in his naive head.

Lewis had just stood up for the blonde, fending off his bullies, yet he was met with _this_.

_How typical._

Lewis glowered after the fading speck of orange.

* * *

With a blink, he found himself hovering by two boys once more, one looking dumbfounded as before. The other looking askance.

“Huh?” younger Lewis said.

“Um… I said thank you.”

Lewis remembered. Three whole days had passed with him left behind to wonder if he had said something wrong to the smaller boy, when in the end Lewis should have just chalked it up to Arthur’s ugly personality.

“I wasn’t really thinking straight when you helped me, and I, uh.” Amber eyes darted anywhere but at Lewis’s curious eyes. A nervous palm fiddled with a black wristband. “I….”

He took a deep breath before speaking hurriedly. “I was just jealous.”

_Not the first time. Murderer—_

“You know, cause you’re just way cooler, and I don’t understand how you can get bullies to back off so easily. Frankly, I don’t know how you can just be so brave, and I really wish I could do what you do” Arthur sucked in air before he continued his rapid, tumbling words. “But I mean, that’s not an excuse for how I behaved.” 

Hesitantly, amber eyes looked up. 

“So, I wanted to thank you. For helping me.”

Younger Lewis blinked, taken by surprise.

A smile spread across his face, so painfully oblivious to the other’s role in his impending demise.

“Yeah, no problem, uh...” younger Lewis trailed off, cheeks reddening as he realized he did not know the other’s name.

“Arthur. I’m Arthur.”

_A r t h u r ._

“Arthur.” Lewis said confidently, the name leaving his tongue with trusting certainty. “Say, Arthur, you wanna go get some ice cream together? My parents own the restaurant down the block, and their ice cream is out of this world.”

Arthur stared, wide-eyed and speechless like the fool he was. “Me?”

Lewis laughed wholeheartedly at the obvious question. “Yes, you. Who else?”

“Oh, sure. Yeah, sure, I mean uh. Yes!” he stammered so eloquently.

“C’mon.”

Lewis could do nothing but glower as the unfortunate pair faded in the distance. 

* * *

Another blink.

Lewis found himself somewhere less familiar.

Arthur, still a young, gangly preteen was seated at a dining table, directly across from a stocky orange-clad man.

The ringing of a shotgun resonated in Lewis’s skull. 

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Futile shots. Each one more irritating than the last.

_The interloper._

Arthur’s uncle. Lewis had forgotten him.

His hand twitched. A dull ache thrummed against his skull. Was he about to… kill him?

_He raised a monster. No forgiveness._

Yes. Lewis was justified.

He glowered at the two, eating in the quiet serenity of the evening light.

“I did it by the way.” Arthur said in between a bite, grabbing his uncle’s attention.

“Oh?” Lance inquired curiously.

“That thing we talked about.” the boy continued. “I said thanks, and that I was kind of being a jerk. And I think that made things better. Just like you said.”

“I see.” A rough chuckle rumbled in Lance’s throat. “Anything else come out of that?”

With a sheepish smile, Arthur fixed a fond gaze on his food.

“I think I made a friend.”

* * *

Before Lewis could scoff at the disgusting irony, he now found himself hovering in the glow of night. But not in the back of a cargo truck.

“Not gonna enjoy your own birthday party?” a matured voice, still touched by youth, questioned.

Lewis looked over to see Arthur, at least eighteen, walking to Lewis’s side, joining him in his stargazing.

Younger Lewis shrugged. “There’s only so much of my sugar-high sisters I can take at once. I’m out here for a breather.”

“Can’t blame you there.” Arthur said, amber eyes following where Lewis’s hand absent-mindedly fiddled with a golden locket pressed against his neck. 

The locket. The only tie Lewis had to his first family. A family he never got to know since his adoption to the Pepper family.

Now his heart. His anchor.

_Vivi…._

“Something on your mind, big guy?”

Lewis looked with a raise of his brow. Arthur simply responded with a smirk and a quick glance at the culprit of Lewis’s distracted thoughts of the night.

Younger Lewis let out a stifled laugh. “Yeah, guess I’m an open book, huh.”

“Yeah, when you’re doing the same thing on every birthday, it’ll take some dense dolt to not realize.” Arthur huffed, leaning against the wooden porch railing with a hand concealing something behind his back.

“Yeah, I know, I know,” Lewis sighed with a roll of his eyes. “I’ve got a loving family who wants me, and there’s no point in thinking about some phoney parents who didn’t bother raising me.”

Younger Lewis eyed the smaller teen. “That about accurate?”

Humming in acknowledgement, Arthur nodded. “More or less. But this time, I’ve got something a little extra.”

Sweeping out his concealed arm, the blonde held out a gift, wrapped with inexperienced clumsiness.

“What’s this?”

“A gift for the birthday _man_. Mr. 18-year-old and still growing into a skyscraper.” Arthur teased, shoving the gift into Lewis’s unexpecting hands.

Large, hesitant hands peeled apart the wrapping, revealing a carefully cut, sleek, mahogany frame. Pressed between a smooth glass panel and cardstock backing was a picture of an undoubtedly chaotic yet nostalgic Thanksgiving memory.

In the frame, Lewis could see three girls stirring up chaos, Arthur being the victim of said chaos, Lewis trying to get a handle on his sisters, and his parents and Lance smiling at the camera, oblivious to the mayhem behind them.

A strategically placed gold plate decorated the bottom of the wooden frame, finished with words stenciled with skillful hands to spell “Family.”

 _What a joke_.

“It’s not the best picture, but believe me when I say it’s the best one with all of us in it.” Arthur said, eyes not-so-subtly examining Lewis’s expression for a reaction.

Younger Lewis, foolish as he was, was rendered speechless.

“Arthur, this is….” he stammered, tightness in his throat translating to his words. “Did you make this? This is just… beautiful.”

“Hey now, don’t be getting all mushy gushy on me.” the other flustered teen joked with a gentle bump of the shoulder.

Younger Lewis let out a hearty laugh, eyes wet from emotion. “Says the one giving me the sappiest gift I’ve ever gotten in my life.”

Pulling Arthur into a side-hug while keeping softened eyes on his gift, Lewis quickly added,

“Also the best gift ever.”

* * *

“So,” a deep voice started. “What do you think about, Vivi?” 

Lewis blinked, adjusting to the brightly-lit room and change of tone. Being forced to watch his well-buried memories was getting more frustrating by the second. Was there any way out of this? He already knew how this so-called “friendship” ends.

“Other than the fact that she has the unhealthiest obsession for creepy ass otherworldly things and a death wish in wanting to actively seek them out?” the blonde stated bluntly. Then shrugged. “I mean, she’s pretty cool.”

“Cool.” a college-aged Lewis said, lingering on the word with a youthful dreaminess. “Yeah… she’s cool.”

“Hoo boy. You’ve got it bad.” Arthur huffed, tinkering with a passion project at his metal-littered desk.

“Huh?”

“I mean you’ve got it _bad_.” the blonde quipped back. “Have you looked in a mirror? Every time we’re talking about her, you’re just floating on cloud nine. When’re you just gonna ask her out?”

It didn’t go unnoticed by the specter how Arthur’s eyebrows furrowed deeper as he buried himself in his work, avoiding younger Lewis’s eyes.

_Jealousy. Ugly jealousy._

Lewis’s cheeks reddened with a fierce heat. “It’s not like that! I just admire her, that’s all. I don’t think I’ve got much time for a relationship anyways.”

“Eh, suit yourself.” Arthur shrugged.

Lewis glared at how the blonde seemed to relax at that.

* * *

One after the other, Lewis saw memory after memory, illustrating a shielded Arthur warming up so slowly, ever so slowly to the sweet, bubbly girl that pushed her way into Lewis and Arthur’s lives.

By the time of Lewis’s graduation, Vivi and Lewis led numerous bold explorations of the paranormal world, dragging a reluctant but eventually willing Arthur along with Vivi’s unique caricature of a dog. A mascot, she used to say. And another welcome addition to Lewis and Arthur’s bubble.

Such warm, nostalgic memories of easier times. Devoid of insatiable rage. Devoid of the grip of death. It only fueled Lewis’s unbridled hatred to remember how Arthur tainted those memories through his existence.

_End him. Finish him. Get back and finish the job._

Every lingering touch and tight embrace Vivi shared with Arthur never failed to make Lewis’s nerves leap with frustration that he could do nothing but watch as the memories ran their course.

Scenes jumbled together, painted out a picture of the trio’s strengthening bonds. Arthur’s deceivingly kind, wholehearted smiles and laughter exchanged at dinner tables.

Soon enough, Arthur was offering Lewis a new picture to insert in his hand-crafted Family frame. The new picture, of course, had the addition of Vivi and Mystery.

Life was so perfect. What had happened?

Lewis needed no explanation.

* * *

“Whoa, sorry!”

“Arthur!” “Artie!” Lewis and Vivi respectively exclaimed in flustered unison.

Lewis watched as he and Vivi disentangled their arms from each other, mouths agape, struggling to speak.

“I’ll just come back later!” Arthur exclaimed spinning on his heel to flee the scene.

“Wait, Arthur, hang on!” Lewis cried out, cheeks burning from indescribable embarrassment.

“You’re just gonna make it more awkward!” Vivi exclaimed.

Upon command, the blonde stopped mid-run and turned to face the couple, his eyebrows furrowed.

“More awkward than finding my two best friends eating each other’s faces off in the back of my van?”

Words caught in Vivi’s throat. “... Fair.”

“Arthur, I swear we didn’t do anything more than that in your car, don’t worry, we’re just, I’m just—” Lewis spewed in a flurry of thoughtless shame.

“Okay, that’s good to know, but believe me when I say I do _not_ want to know if it _ever_ happens.”

Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose, pursing through unspoken thoughts.

“So I take it you guys are finally dating.” he said, more of a statement than a question.

_Jealousy. Murderer. Monster._

“Uh… if by finally, you mean a... year? Then yeah.” Vivi admitted with uncharacteristic sheepishness.

Arthur’s brows raised, his face contorting through varying emotions all in one brief moment.

“One… year?” he murmured, confusion thick in his voice. There was something curiously hurt laced in between. “A whole. Year? You guys have been dating for a _whole_ year?”

His gaze was icy yet his voice wavered. 

“And you didn’t tell me.”

“Believe me Arthur, we were going to let you know pretty soon after it started,” Lewis started. 

Vivi quickly finished. “I just don’t think there was ever really a right time, and we both were a bit... I don’t know, chicken to mention it?”

Arthur stared, astonished. No doubt, consumed by whatever evil he had disguised so well over the years.

“I mean, I don’t understand why you guys felt like you _had_ to let me know.” The bonde finally said, caustic voice dripping with something Lewis could only perceive as sarcasm. “It’s not a big deal. Really guys.”

Lewis’s gloved hands clenched.

“Besides, maybe in hindsight, _I’m_ the idiot for not realizing sooner.” Arthur’s jaw set, his eyes refusing to meet his friends’.

Arthur, an idiot? Yes, Lewis could certainly agree with that. 

“Artie,” Vivi said cautiously as she reached to touch the other’s hand. “Are you alright?”

Younger Lewis followed behind her, tongue tied in his mouth, clearly too unsure what to make of Arthur’s reaction.

_Too blind to understand._

With a brisk step away from Vivi, Arthur shoved a set of keys into Lewis’s palm, gaze still downcast.

“Just…” he started, voice tight. “You drive, okay? I need to think.”

Lewis was too naive. Too trusting to see the reality of the inner machinations of Arthur’s mind.

But there was still… something in Arthur’s gaze, that the ghost could not understand. Something that even Lewis at the time could not decipher. Perhaps that was why his younger self found himself murmuring the one thing he could muster.

“Okay.”

* * *

Lewis didn’t need to keep watching to know what happens next.

That night has been burned into his unwilling memory.

Carved into his heart to bring clarity to the true blight of his world that was Arthur Kingsmen.

Yet, in an act of unadulterated cruelty he was forced to watch.

From the car ride over — Lewis, Vivi, and Mystery breaking the ice among themselves with half-hearted humor, Arthur and his unreadable, thousand mile stare in the backseat — to the cave where Lewis’s life was cut short.

But when that moment — _the_ moment — arrived, Lewis’s vision was clouded with a haze. As if he were peering through frosted glass.

He could barely make out the image of Arthur’s whole body rippling with a jolting shudder. All sounds muffled as if his ears were filled with water then stuffed with cotton, yet a piercing cry — _my cry_ — was just barely able to scrape through.

Through foggy images, Arthur’s arm was outstretched, the absence of Lewis a telling sign that the deed was done.

“No… No….” Lewis could barely manage to hear it: Arthur’s voice choked with horror. Breaths coming in short, broken succession. “Lewis!”

“No!” a less familiar voice roared.

Then suddenly, as if emerging to the water’s surface, Lewis could hear every sound bouncing off the sharp cave walls, crisp and clean.

He — and Arthur — spun around to meet with a glowering beast, eyes red with vengeance. Growl filled with enough fury to rival Lewis’s own.

In one fatal instant, Arthur was slammed against the ground, screaming himself hoarse as flesh ripped from flesh. The sound of blood spilled and splattered against stone, leaving Lewis nauseous in hesitant terror. The screams persisted. Anguished. Desperate. Begging for an end.

_He’s getting what he deserves._

No. Not like this.

_Let him suffer._

A sharp pain pierced through Lewis’s skull, bringing him to his knees, yet he could not bring himself to look away from the horrific sight.

Arthur, the tinkerer, the engineer, the mechanic who could fix anything he touched, build anything one would think impossible with those crafty hands, now left with half his talent. The other half, now sickeningly green, mangled, and trapped between razor teeth.

Haze encroached into his vision, and once more Lewis was submerged in the deafening waters, his ears barely managing to catch the strangled gasps of a broken man.

The silhouette of the beast approached, slowly. Ruefully. It opened its blood-drenched mouth as if to speak.

“I’m sorry.”

* * *

An unbearable ringing — high and reedy — sounded within Lewis’s skull.

“Artie…?” A quivering, muffled voice stammered in the dark.

 _Vivi_.

Where was she? Lewis needed to find her. Needed to make sure she was safe.

But everywhere he turned he was met with impenetrable darkness.

“Oh, god, Artie!”

The sound of panicked feet pounded on gravel.

“Oh my god, Artie” Vivi’s voice wracked with panic. “We’ve gotta — I’ve gotta —”

A pause — uncertain and dazed. As if the concept of “we” was slipping from her mind. As if it felt familiar on her tongue but made no sense in her mind. A crushing sign that Lewis was nothing but a lost memory to the one he loved the most.

“We got…” she stopped again, the silence cutting deep. “No— I...I’ve got you.”

_All his fault._

It was all his fault — a flash of red, Arthur’s anguished screams, Lewis’s name leaving his mouth in terror — the specter screwed his eyes shut. It meant nothing. It changed nothing.

Vivi tried again. “I’ve got you.”

* * *

The sound of bustling steps against waxed flooring, the screech of wheeled beds, and digital beeps buzzed in Lewis’s ears. Cloudy but familiar enough to deduce.

_A hospital._

“Please…elp him,” Vivi’s trembling voice begged.

Lewis would have done anything to be there to hold her steady in his arms.

“... did my best to stop the bleeding, but he’s….”

She sounded so tired. So scared.

“Y... can’t follow….” an experienced voice, calm and resolute said. “... do our best… sit tight.”

Lewis was left to the fuzzy cacophony of medical mayhem. All of which almost drowned out the tiny, rasped breath, barely grasping onto life.

* * *

Unexpected light cracked through Lewis’s vision. Fuzzy, then piercing.

A rhythmic electronic sound bounced off blank, white walls, clarity increasing with each beep.

Lewis turned his gaze down, seeing Arthur, smaller… paler… weaker than he remembered.

One less limb than he remembered.

_What is this?_

These weren’t his memories. What was he watching? Why was he seeing this? _How_ was he seeing this? The stabbing in his skull was relentless. Hungry. Feeding off of his confusion.

Lethargic amber eyes roamed the room, eventually landing on a blue-clothed woman, deep in slumber. Her hands clung desperately to Arthur’s own as if she were tethering him to the living world.

And perhaps she was.

“Vivi….?” Arthur’s raw voice crackled behind the ventilator pressed against his face.

The blue woman stirred, bloodshot eyes unfocused as she raised her head. With a stifled breath, she shot forward.

“Artie!” She grasped his hand even tighter, tears welling in her eyes. “Oh my god, Artie! I’m so glad you’re….”

Oblivious to where he was, Arthur could only stare back.

“When I saw all that blood… I thought you were going to… I thought….” Vivi stammered, body trembling.

“I’m….” was all Arthur could say, slow to rummage through his thoughts.

Suddenly, Vivi’s gaze steeled with a morbid seriousness Lewis seldom saw.

“Artie, what happened in there? In that cave?” she pressed, her tone apprehensive. “One second, we split up, the next second Mystery drags you over and….”

“I….” Arthur tried again, his words slurring together. “I don’t know. I remember….”

A pause.

“I remember we were on the ledge. And… and….”

Alarmed eyes fixed onto Vivi.

“Lewis. Where is he?” Arthur’s voice was desperate. Frightened.

His eyes darted around the room, finding anything but Lewis.

Vivi stared, eyebrows furrowed.

“Who?”

Arthur’s shocked face said it all. A messy mixture of disbelief and confusion.

“Lewis…” he croaked weakly, clutching her hands tighter. As if it would squeeze an explanation out of her. “Vivi, _Lewis_ . Our best— your _boyfriend_. In the cave… with us… he….”

His broken stuttering was incomprehensible. Perhaps that was why he trailed off. Or perhaps he was too lost in suffocating thoughts. Trying to understand why he was lying, half-alive in a hospital bed.

Amber eyes widened.

“With us… th-the monster… it….”

His eyes traced slowly, so excruciatingly slowly, to his arm. Where it was supposed to be. Now nothing more but a bandaged stump. A pathetic reminder of what it was supposed to be.

The electrocardiogram lost its rhythm as his breaths came shorter and shorter. Beeps became all too loud in a far too small room.

“My arm— ” Arthur stammered. “And— Lewis, he— my arm— ”

“Artie,” Vivi’s voice was stern and commanding. “ _Arthur_ , look at me.”

Grabbing his face in between her hands, she forced him to look into her eyes, solid and steadying. Untrained eyes would believe her to be calm. But Lewis could see her collected strength dangling by a thread, held taut by the pressure to be strong for two.

“Breathe.”

* * *

A gasp, strangled and wet, spilled into the room.

Lewis’s head swiveled. A dark room, illuminated only by the moon came into view.

A room once littered with parts and contraptions in progress was now tidy. Tools that found their place on workshop tables, hung neatly on the wall, unused for what seemed to be a while.

Something about it left Lewis unsettled. Disturbed even.

Shuddering breaths distracted Lewis from the continued throbs in his head. His eyes drew to the source.

_You…._

Head in his hand, legs hanging over the bedside, a wiry thin Arthur was struggling for breath.

Lewis approached closer, leering — trying yet faltering to maintain the weight of contempt he had for the man — and failing to pull his gaze away from the unfamiliar stump.

Left behind from bright, passionate eyes of an untamed mind was a glassy stare, distant and fragile. Pale lips uttered hushed strings of words that Lewis could barely hear. “Wasn’t real” was all he could catch.Truly, Arthur was a pitiful sight to behold.

The knock at the door was just the distraction Lewis needed to pull his eyes away from his… murderer.

 _No_ —

Yes.

The banging on his skull was unbearable.

Another knock.

Arthur made no move to answer it, deaf to the sound over his own incoherent murmurs.

Not waiting for a response, Lance slipped through the doorway, approaching his nephew with caution. As if he were an unhinged, skittish animal. 

“Arthur.”

The younger blonde jolted, whipping his head over his shoulder.

“Uncle Lance.” Arthur said as he hastily rubbed the moisture from his eyes. “What are you doing up?”

“Could be asking the same of you.” Lance’s eyes darted to where his nephew’s arm should have been. It seemed he too struggled to adjust to the sight.

“... Couldn’t sleep.”

“Me neither.” The shadows underneath Lance’s eyes were a transparent story.

The older man moved to sit beside his nephew. “You wanna talk about what’s on your mind?”

Arthur’s shoulders stiffened. “I….” he started, then quickly screwed his eyes shut. His head fell in his hand once more. “Not really, no. I just….”

He fisted a handful of hair. “This is just so messed up.”

“What is?” But Lance knew. It was obvious in his expression.

“ _This_ ” Arthur said, gesturing to his missing limb. “I barely even remember _how_ this happened….And no one has any idea where Lewis is. Everything about Lewis is just… gone from Vivi’s mind. And I just….”

Narrow shoulders shook as words caught in Arthur’s throat. “I can’t remember. What. the hell. Happened.”

Lance wrapped a steady arm around his nephew, saying nothing, the light in his eyes dimmed by grief.

“If I could just remember, I….” Arthur trailed off, a flash of mixed fear and doubt glancing off his face before he shook his head.

Lance closed his eyes, nostrils flared and jaw set, attempting to keep his composure.

Arthur wept. 

“I just want my best friend back.”

Lewis struggled to ignore the stinging in his locket.

* * *

Days since Arthur’s talk with Lance turned into weeks, then months.

Lewis watched many nightmare-wracked nights deprive Arthur of sleep, the memories blurring by in fast forward, meshing in their similarities.

Every night like the last, Arthur would jolt awake, sometimes gasping, sometimes screaming, sometimes crying out Lewis’s name. Always grasping for his arm only to find nothing there. Most nights, he would lie awake, haunted by his thoughts. Or perhaps haunted by the remnant of a broken memory, fogged over by a green haze.

Lewis couldn’t bear to watch any more.

* * *

“You should keep this. Lewis would have wanted you to have it.”

Lewis opened his eyes, finding himself face-to-face with two painfully familiar faces.

_My parents…._

Aged from grief, they carried a heavy sadness with them.

“I don’t… I don’t understand.” Arthur’s small voice came from the direction of the Pepper couple’s fixed gaze.

“Lewis really loved this. He gushed about it for quite a while.” Mr. Pepper said, voice threatening to crack with emotion.

Mrs. Pepper, typically a quiet woman of few words, added, “You should have it.”

“You made it after all. I think Lewis would have wanted you to hang onto it.” Mr. Pepper finished, turning his gaze downcast. “To remember him by.”

Lewis followed the stare, turning to find Arthur, curling into himself, a familiar mahogany-framed picture set between trembling fingers. The metal plating stenciled with the word “Family” glinted with the light.

“But he’s not….” Arthur stuttered, denial etched into his voice.

“Thank you.” Lance quickly cut in as he stood beside his nephew. “I think we still,” he glanced quickly at Arthur, “Need some time to process things.”

Mr. and Mrs. Pepper nodded in understanding.

“Of course.” Mr. Pepper said softly.

“If there’s anything I can do to help make things easier for you all, you know I’ll do it.” Lance said, a firm hand on Mr. Pepper’s shoulder. “A coffin. A gravestone. Anything.”

One look at Lance told Lewis that the few months have not been kind to him either.

“You’re a good man, Lance.” Mr. Pepper said, his smile appreciative and tired. With a glance at Arthur, he added, “No matter what, you’re both still a part of our family.”

_Family…._

With that, the couple said their goodbyes leaving behind Lance and Arthur. Arthur, who now held the photo in a vice grip, eyebrows furrowed in an unreadable expression.

Lance turned to his nephew saying nothing, looking at the photo with ill-concealed sorrow.

Before Lance could place a sturdy hand on Arthur’s shoulder, he stood abruptly, jolting both Lance and Lewis, and ran down the corridor, disappearing into his room.

Lance hurried after him, with Lewis hovering closely behind.

“Arthur, what’s—”

“He’s not _dead!_ ” Lewis heard Arthur exclaim before watching him shove the frame into his workbench drawer, quickly slamming it shut. “Everybody’s acting like he’s _dead_ , but he’s _not!_ ”

Lance’s gaze softened with sympathy. “Son,” he treaded carefully. “It’s been months. Neither of you remember what happened. There are no leads, no body, no—”

“Exactly! No body!” Arthur stressed. “No _body_! So no one even really knows if Lewis is alive or not!”

“If he were still alive, don’t you think we would have heard something about it by now? Ransom letters, eye witnesses, _anything?_ ” Lance questioned, authoritative voice raising.

Unable to muster a response, Arthur looked away, running a hand through his hair in exasperated frustration.

“I don’t want to believe he’s gone either.” Lance said, voice quieter. “But we have to start moving on, son.

His face softened with sadness.

“I can’t keep watching you just… wither away like this. You haven’t been eating, haven’t been sleeping, you rarely ever see the lass and her dog anymore.”

Arthur closed his eyes.

Lance sighed as he approached his nephew. “I want to give you as much time as you need. And… you know that I’m always here if you want to talk.” Lance wrapped an arm around Arthur, pulling him to his side. “But we need to accept that Lewis is… gone.”

It was difficult to hear gruff, tough Lance strain to push the last words out of his mouth.

“All we can do now is remember him.” Lance finished.

Magenta eyes traced over Arthur’s face, truly seeing for the first time a man, trapped in the past. 

Haunted by one decisive moment.

Arthur opened his eyes.

“He’s not dead.”

* * *

The scene was now dark. Lewis was still hovering in Arthur’s room, quickly noting Lance’s absence.

The dim glow of a lamp light prompted Lewis to turn, looking down at a head of blonde hair. Arthur sat by his dusty workbench, woefully unused.

Amber eyes stared absentmindedly at the wall. Lone hand rolling a screw between fingers.

Setting the screw down, he abruptly yanked open his workbench drawer. Inside, laying face-down, was the handmade frame.

With a dejected sigh, Arthur took out the frame, examining the photo once more. Contrasting his previous state of denial, he looked tenderly at the scene laid out, a warm fondness in his eyes.

Lewis remembered this photo. He remembered Arthur picking it out to include Vivi some time ago, yet the scene remained just as hectic as the first. 

His sisters picking on their favorite target: Arthur. Lewis trying to pull the reigns on the girls. Mystery craning his neck over a table. Vivi laughing at the chaos. And Lance and Lewis’s parents smiling for the photo, pretending not to notice the mess behind them.

It was something Lewis couldn’t help but feel fond for as well. He missed those carefree days.

It seemed Arthur did too. His smile was wistful. His thumb lingered over the word “Family”.

“No body. No evidence.” he murmured, smile fading. “No witnesses. No word. No nothing.”

Lewis noticed his eyes slowly draw towards a shelf. It held several books, most of which had mechanic-related content, some of which were hamster-care guides, one of which was notably different from the others. Vivi’s.

Arthur reached for Vivi’s book — a book on spirits and the supernatural. It was one that Lewis recalled Arthur objecting to having, protesting that he had enough stress in his life.

Amber eyes stared at the cover, drawing back to the framed photo.

Lewis noticed something different in his eyes. A flicker of… something. Something Lewis hadn’t seen in those eyes since before the cave, yet something with a hardness that Lewis had never seen in those eyes for his whole living life.

“You’re not dead.” Arthur said quietly, his breath shaky and unsure, as if he were testing the words on his tongue.

He set the book down on his workbench and propped the Family frame up by his desk side.

Drawers flew open and writing tools clattered atop the workbench as Arthur scribbled furiously on gridded engineering paper. His posture was awkward, a clear sign that he was not yet used to his armless state. 

His sketching was relentless.

* * *

Lewis blinked and was still in Arthur’s room. The only indicator of the progression of time was Arthur’s changed shirt and the unfamiliar creation resting on the workbench surface.

Arthur with his messy head of blonde hair, worked with an unbreakable focus. His hand connected wires with surgical precision as his mouth held a tool to help him keep his creation steady, reminding Lewis that despite Arthur’s disability, his talent still remained.

He would dare to say that it was awe-inspiring.

The room was calm, with only the subdued clicks of metal. 

Up until Arthur lost grip of the tool between his teeth. His metal project tipped over, slipping off the workbench and clattering onto the floor along with a litter of nuts and bolts.

A guttural sound of frustration ripped through Arthur’s throat as he threw the tool he held across his bedroom. The aggression left Lewis wide-eyed.

And apparently had caught Lance’s attention, as a knock sounded at the door.

“Son?” Lance said, failing to hide his concern. “Everything alright in there?”

Arthur didn’t answer, his body hunched over his workbench with a hand fisted in his hair. His breath was trembling with frustration.

Lance cracked open the door, peering in slowly. “Arthur.” he tried again.

When his nephew didn’t look up, Lance opened the door, surprised eyes shooting to the metal mess on the floor.

“What happened here?”

Arthur only sighed in response, turning red-tinged eyes to his uncle. “Nothing.”

Thick silence filled the room as Lance pieced together the scene, an understanding dawning upon him.

“Well,” he started as he got down on a knee. “Let’s get this nothing off the floor.”

Organizing the litter back to their proper place on Arthur’s workbench, Lance finally picked up the cylindrical object of Arthur’s attention, spilling with colored wires.

He examined the object with a hint of admiration glinting in his eyes. His eyes then swept over the blueprints and gridded paper strewn about the desk.

“You’re making an arm….”

“Trying to.” Arthur corrected, running his hand through his hair. “Thanks for helping me clean up.”

Lance placed the arm-in-progress back in front of Arthur. “How long have you worked on this?”

“Three days.” Arthur said, hand moving to fix a jostled part.

Lance’s eyebrows raised in silent surprise. “Quite an impressive amount of progress given your condition.”

Arthur’s jaw set. “Would be faster if I had two hands.”

“Need a pair?” Lance offered as he dragged another chair over.

His nephew’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, sorry, I wasn’t… I mean I wasn’t implying,” he stammered awkwardly. “I just meant….”

He sighed, setting down his tool.

“I just meant I want to do it on my own but… be able to do a two-handed job with, well,” he looked at his sole hand. “With what I’ve got.”

Lance hummed in acknowledgement. 

“Well, even people with all their limbs need some help every now and again.” he said settling in a chair. “I do. That’s why I’ve got you in the shop.”

Lance’s face lightened at Arthur’s smile. It was small, but it was something. 

“I guess that’s true.”

“Let me help you tonight, then you can keep going at it on your own if you really want.”

Finally, Arthur conceded. 

“Okay.”

* * *

“Look, I know it sounds,” Arthur swallowed. “Crazy. But I just think… Lewis has to be out there somewhere.”

Lewis watched — as if he could do anything more — as Arthur and Vivi sat side-by-side in the back of a van Lewis spent so many of his remaining years in.

Vivi watched Arthur with careful eyes, as everyone seemed to do lately. As if Arthur would fall apart any second.

Had Lewis not witnessed Arthur’s strengthening resolve, he would have thought the same.

Vivi who supposedly had not seen Arthur for some time did not watch him start pulling bits of himself back together. And so she was cautious.

Lewis noticed her eyes failing to pull away from — he traced her gaze — a metal arm, fully functional with working digits and connected almost naturally to Arthur’s body. The design seemed simple, yet it was crafted with ergonomic ingenuity. 

The black wristband added a touch of Arthur’s personal flair in an attempt for normalcy. As if his real arm had returned but now with metal skin and electrical circuitry for muscles.

“I think if we were originally there to look for paranormal stuff,” Arthur said, fiddling with his wristband. An old habit that never died. “And Lewis just up and disappeared… And both our memories are so messed up… and my arm is, uh, gone— ”

“Then a ghost must be behind all this?” Vivi finished.

“Or some other kind of spirit. Or something else all paranormally took him somewhere else. I don’t know.” Arthur said, flustered. “Ugh, the more I hear it, the more it sounds ridiculous.”

“Artie, you’re talking to the one who lives for the paranormal,” Vivi huffed. “If anything, I’m shocked _you —_ Mr. scaredy cat who won’t come find ghosts with me until I beg — are the one proposing this.”

Arthur let out a nervous chuckle. “Yeah, me too.”

A silence settled between them. Not uncomfortable, but not quite comfortable either. Blue eyes eyed Arthur with a newfound curiosity. Her gaze dimmed as she turned away.

“He must have really meant a lot to you, huh.”

Arthur looked at her, now his turn to speak carefully. “He meant a lot to you too.”

Vivi let out a dry, short-lived laugh. “Yeah, so I’ve been told.”

Her somber expression looked so unnatural on her face. Lewis wanted so badly to make her smile. Make her happy again, like the old days.

“I just wish I could remember.” she sighed.

“I know.” Arthur said, his hand coiling tighter around his metal appendage. His next words were spoken carefully with a tremble. “That’s why I want to go back.”

Vivi raised an eyebrow, face slowly paling as the meaning behind his statement settled in her head.

“I….” she started, clearly conflicted. “Artie, I don’t know.”

“That’s where it all started. Maybe if we go back, something will jostle our memories.” Arthur’s voice was controlled, but his face whispered of fear. 

Fear of what he didn’t know. Fear of what he thought he did. Fear of confirmation.

“Or at the very least, we can find something the police couldn’t.” Arthur added quickly.

“Artie, they did a full sweep of the place. What do you think we’re going to find that they couldn’t?”

“They weren’t looking for anything paranormal like we’d be doing.” he pushed firmly, amber eyes fixing into blue ones.

Another wave of silence passed as the two stared with a wordless seriousness. What kind of silent conversation they exchanged, Lewis was not entirely sure. But near the end of it, Arthur’s face wilted with a touch of hurt.

“Don’t you want to find him, Vivi?”

“And risk what? Losing another best friend? _Forgetting_ another best friend?” she said, almost offended by the blonde’s question. “I want to find him, but… I almost lost you in that cave once. I just don’t want another close call like that again. I don’t want you to lose,” her eyes grazed over the metal appendage, then to his tired face. “More than you already have. And _I_ don’t want to lose more than I already have either.”

Arthur’s eyes softened in sympathy, any words of response swept from underneath him.

After a long moment’s pause, Vivi closed her eyes, taking a slow, drawn-out breath before she spoke again.

“But I know… that even if I don’t go, you’re going to be an idiot and go on your own anyway.”

The silence acted as confirmation.

“So if we go, you need to promise me,” she turned to Arthur, gripping his hand — the non-metal one — with a desperate firmness. “We will _not_ split up. You stay by my side the entire time.”

Again, words seemed to catch in Arthur’s throat. 

He looked into Vivi’s eyes seeming to understand the pain she had been dealing with. A pain different from the grieving faces he had seen. And a fear different from his own. 

Truly, it did not belong on her face.

He returned her grip.

“I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> Can you tell I love found family tropes?  
> I'll do my best to keep working on the second chapter.  
> I don't really write fics, so I'd love to hear what you think so far! Any criticism or pointers are very much appreciated.


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